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Poster: | jerlouvis | Date: | Jul 30, 2011 9:38am |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: long-term listening strategies |
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Poster: | wisconsindead | Date: | Jul 30, 2011 11:32am |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: long-term listening strategies |
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Poster: | bkidwell | Date: | Jul 30, 2011 11:03am |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: long-term listening strategies |
This post was modified by bkidwell on 2011-07-30 18:03:52
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Poster: | light into ashes | Date: | Jul 31, 2011 1:46am |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: long-term listening strategies |
At least he was opinionated. It's also my impression that the folks since then in charge of releasing & writing up the music are, by an inevitable process of selection, in the "it's all good" camp, & rarely seem to dislike anything....it's a bit sad to see relatively average later shows marketed with the same hype as the really great stuff. Not a big issue, though. The late-era fans need a few crumbs thrown their way! :)
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Poster: | clementinescaboose | Date: | Jul 31, 2011 11:50pm |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: long-term listening strategies |
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Poster: | bkidwell | Date: | Jul 31, 2011 3:40am |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: long-term listening strategies |
I've seen many complaints about over-praise for later era shows in the release liner notes etc, but I have to say I think it is completely absurd to expect a corporate entity trying to sell a product to offer an unbiased artistic appraisal of what they are selling. I know you and the others who make those statements aren't actually naive about this, but it still seems akin to expecting that "gourmet restaurant quality" on the packaging for a frozen pizza can be taken literally!
More than that, I'm also pretty extreme on the continuum of how good I think the Grateful Dead were, in absolute terms in comparison to other rock bands. I have no hesitation in saying that even if everything the band ever recorded vanished apart from ten random shows from 1983, the Grateful Dead would still be the best live rock band in history, easily. The fact that any random show from 1972 is better than the best show from 1983 doesn't change the fact that in comparison to other rock music, the Grateful Dead were on an entirely different musical plane for their entire career.
The Grateful Dead were climbing musical mountains for their entire career, in comparison to the small hills that are where most popular music lives. To resort to my conventional classical analogies - The GD at their best were on the level of Beethoven and Bach, in their weaker years it was more like Tchaikovsky or Vivaldi, but there is still a big gap in quality between Tchaikovsky and the vastly more limited artistic range of popular music.
I'm not sure I've ever really clearly articulated my perspective about these things in a way that is comprehensible. It's hard to do so in a way that doesn't sound like I'm trying to tear down the artistic value of music which I love. A four minute verse-chorus song can be a completely perfect work of art, but Mozart's Don Giovanni is on a higher artistic plane. That isn't a criticism of the simple song, because it has a different artistic context and goal.
At some point I'm going to try to write a really in-depth essay about musical style and the 30 year history of the GD, because I think the way we usually frame things (68-74 Golden Age vs. the weaker post-hiatus years) actually encapsulates a lot of different aesthetic dichotomies. I completely agree those years are of higher quality, but I have come to realize my reasons for preferring them are different than those expressed by many.
I think many listeners prefer that era because the quality of the rock & roll elements in the band is at its height - during those years, the GD can go toe-to-toe with other "classic rock" in terms of a tight, energetic sound. I think for many, if the "rock elements" in the music aren't present, it sounds bad to them. I think these listeners appreciate other elements in the music also, but if the rock foundation isn't solid, the whole thing collapses, from their perspective. As a result, the fact that the GD sound and feel became increasingly divorced from traditional rock and roll makes the band sound "worse and worse" as the years progressed.
I hear the superiority of the 68-74 era as inherent in the interplay of the instruments and the groupmind, and this element also became weaker in the music subsequently, but I believe it declined less than the "classic rock feel" declined. There is also the purely compositional aspect, and I think the compositional peak of the band was later than the performance peak. "Blues for Allah" and "Terrapin Station" have what I think of as the best composed music the band ever created, so a lot of the best-written songs aren't even performed during the band's best years! In fact, there is a legitimate tension between composition and improvisation, and one of the ironies of the band's career is that they never quite seemed to realize that.
Well, this got a lot longer than I expected, but let me bring it around to the conclusion - the comments on the later-era releases are only overly positive when viewed in relation to the band's other releases. There is nothing wrong with labeling a random 82 or 88 show release as a "spectacular performance" within the grand scheme of music on the planet Earth, it IS a spectacular performance of spectacular music.
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Poster: | light into ashes | Date: | Jul 31, 2011 10:50am |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: long-term listening strategies |
I wasn't really lamenting blurbs or liner note comments for later shows, which are not a big deal - really just saying that it's natural that writers who work for the Dead would, by the nature of things, not be very critical of many shows. In that sense, Latvala was more of an anomaly.
I also agree he made a lot of good Picks, and if weren't for having to be "representative" or pick just the highest-quality shows, he'd certainly have an even higher success rate, though within a narrower year range.
Anyway, you're often saying that someday you'll write a long post on X, Y, or Z topics.... Someday I'll hold you to account and list out all the things you said you'd write about!
I'm not sure about your theory, though, so will have to await further explication. It was my impression that later shows (such as, say, 4/6/82 or 4/1/88) had MORE "classic rock" elements than shows in the mid-'70s, aside from the drums>space segements or a few jam tunes.
In those terms, I think there's actually a big division within the "Golden Age"...68-71 has a lot of that rock sound you mention, but the 72-74 band is much calmer & mellower, with more of a "country-rock" vibe (and mostly lacking both Pigpen & Mickey), which is one reason I suspect that phase is the most popular.
'77 seems to me to be the year when the Dead consciously returned to more of a tighter rock format, a process that escalated considerably in '78, and was aided by the addition of Brent (a classic-rock guy to his core). And I think tonally, the instrument sound becomes much more "rock-ish" in the '80s, to generalize.
But by '79 there's also a creeping-in of more "weird" elements like drums>space, and often more out-there jams, along with the big song suites that had been there all along. So these elements kind of awkwardly coexist in Dead shows - by the '90s, we have these very elaborate non-rock musical statements that you're into, side-by-side with any number of cheesy standard-rock tunes - like that 3/30/90 space>Miracle you posted about. I'm not sure if the Dead actually favored one side or the other, but embraced both, just as country & psychedelia had been bedpartners in '69-70.
So, while I do think there are a number of tonal & stylistic things that make the later years less appealing for many, I'm not sure it's related to any decline in the "classic-rock" feel. (The hard-rock sound of '68 is, on the wider scale, not even one of the most popular Dead years!) You may be thinking of elements in the music I'm overlooking, like sheer "tightness" or "good singing voices" or whatnot - but it's worth remembering that, for all the diehards like me on this forum, there are many more 1990 fans out there who have no problem with the band's sound that year, and theories must account for them, too!
Anyway, the debate continues!....
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Poster: | bkidwell | Date: | Jul 31, 2011 4:07pm |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: long-term listening strategies |
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Poster: | light into ashes | Date: | Jul 31, 2011 9:56pm |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: long-term listening strategies |
I'll just briefly note that many listeners (though not many on this forum) actually favor the later GD years over the "Golden Age," feeling that the earlier Dead (before '72 or '73 or '77 or Brent) just sounds too raw & undeveloped. And I feel that the blatant "rockisms" the Dead sometimes indulged in '80s/90s shows also have their fans....I don't know about Miracle, but certainly something like Deal with its big-rock-guitar-solo generates a lot of enthusiasm.
So take care not to fling lances at "straw men" in your argument - GD music always divides opinions, from whatever year!
Personally I feel that the Dead were NEVER very good at "rock" - though they certainly shuffled, and they definitely excelled at making people dance, the straight rock vocabulary was not their strong suit. As you say, they worked on more subtle levels (the many Chuck Berry covers aside)....
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Poster: | bkidwell | Date: | Aug 1, 2011 4:16am |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: long-term listening strategies |
This post was modified by bkidwell on 2011-08-01 11:16:00
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Poster: | AltheaRose | Date: | Aug 1, 2011 6:27am |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: long-term listening strategies |
This post was modified by AltheaRose on 2011-08-01 13:27:41
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Poster: | light into ashes | Date: | Aug 1, 2011 12:49pm |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: long-term listening strategies |
Granted, I think rap & hip-hop is much more "in" these days, but classic rock holds its own.... We haven't yet reached another of those dividing lines.
One thing I noticed about the early Dead was how, in their covers, they completely ignored the mainstream music of the '40s-50s, instead taking all their cues from the 'underground' black blues/R&B tradition, and from ancient & half-forgotten jugband & "folk" records. Just part of the process by which early rock bands wiped out the "pop" music of their parents!
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Poster: | bkidwell | Date: | Aug 1, 2011 6:39am |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: long-term listening strategies |
I think both you and LIA think of "classic rock" as labeling mostly the heavier guitar, more blues oriented sound - maybe that usage is more standard than my own tendency to use labels rather loosely.
More crucially, though, I wasn't trying to say that the later GD stopped trying to be a rock band - just that they became much worse at delivering the rock sound in a satisfying way, but other aspects of their musicality didn't fall off as much. It's obviously not black-and-white, and perhaps the vocabulary isn't precise enough to let me communicate the aspects of the band's sound I have playing in my mind's ear.
In later era GD, the way the guitar tones sit on top of the "steam powered clockwork" rhythm section makes everything sound much more internally divergent than the unified and solid sound of classic rock of all genres. It's true this kind of contrapuntal texture also exists in the Wall of Sound era especially in jams, but Billy K's fluidity and flow in his solo years does a lot to synthesize the sound into perceptual unity.
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Poster: | light into ashes | Date: | Aug 1, 2011 12:27pm |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: long-term listening strategies |
Maybe new trends will arise that'll change the way people hear these things...
Anything sounds better than the '80s. That was easily the worst period for mainstream rock music....just ghastly!
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Poster: | rastamon | Date: | Aug 1, 2011 12:33pm |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: long-term listening strategies |
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Poster: | vapors | Date: | Jul 31, 2011 8:55pm |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: long-term listening strategies |
But you guys, archived here, (and in the midst of the fray) you are forever leading the troops home, never flinching from your prescribed duty; to illuminate the overwhelming Grateness.
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Poster: | AltheaRose | Date: | Jul 31, 2011 9:23pm |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: long-term listening strategies |
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Poster: | clementinescaboose | Date: | Aug 1, 2011 12:14am |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: long-term listening strategies |
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Poster: | jerlouvis | Date: | Jul 30, 2011 1:04pm |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: long-term listening strategies |
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Poster: | wisconsindead | Date: | Jul 30, 2011 1:42pm |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: long-term listening strategies |
Though I must say, Cliff mentioned a Jack Straw of which he said could likely be the best ever (or something close to that) and I found it to be standard and definitely not even in the realm of best ever. Yet Cliff's opinion is held quite high by others and his knowledge of the music, at least as far as I've seen, is clearly above average; hes no dummy.
That being said, are all of us a bit clueless at times?
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Poster: | jerlouvis | Date: | Jul 30, 2011 2:16pm |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: long-term listening strategies |
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Poster: | wisconsindead | Date: | Jul 30, 2011 3:30pm |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: long-term listening strategies |
I guess what I think they need is a Road Trip Series dedicated to 68-70. and then maybe one for fall 72 hehe (i'm bias!)
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Poster: | jerlouvis | Date: | Jul 30, 2011 6:23pm |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: long-term listening strategies |
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Poster: | Cliff Hucker | Date: | Jul 30, 2011 2:48pm |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: long-term listening strategies |
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Poster: | wisconsindead | Date: | Jul 30, 2011 3:07pm |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: long-term listening strategies |
If I understand you correctly you are referring to the shorter jam that separates verses typically starting at 1:10 into the song? If so the length from your suggested version is 23 seconds long while the one I am suggesting is the same, or 21 seconds to my count. They both contain the same amount of measures as far as I can tell. This 87 version is about 40 seconds shorter though. (79 , 6:26) and (87, 5:44)
http://www.archive.org/details/gd87-04-06.sbd-matrix.hinko.19848.sbeok.shnf
I enjoy your suggested version and its certainly above average, I just don't think its a best ever candidate.
Also I hope I haven't offended you, it was not my intention, that situation seemed like a perfect analogy.
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Poster: | Cliff Hucker | Date: | Jul 30, 2011 3:31pm |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: long-term listening strategies |
I like the 10/27/28 performance of Jack Straw solely for the extended instrumental break starting at 3:35 (on the most recent Charlie Miller transfer) and lasting a full 2 minutes. Certainly not the tightest rendition (with some sketchy vocals and a somewhat annoying Brent keyboard tone), it is the most jammed out Jack Straw that I am familiar with...
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1979-10-27.sbd.miller.98950.sbeok.flac16
I'm afraid that all the tea in China is not going to convince me that a 1987 performance can hold a candle to it, regardless of what might be a high energy level and an intense crowd reaction. This in spite of the fact that I attended that show.
There are certainly multiple criteria with which to evaluate a performance of Jack Straw. Only one of which is instrumental creativity, which I put at a premium.
If I had to choose the tightest, most aesthetically beautiful performance, with perhaps the most emotive interpretation, I dont think any rendition would trump the Jack Straw in Paris on 5/3/72. I think this will become apparent when the Europe '72 box is released in September and we can hear the song as it was played that night (without the vocal over-dubs)...
http://www.archive.org/details/gd72-05-03.sbd.masse.142.sbeok.shnf
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Poster: | wisconsindead | Date: | Jul 30, 2011 4:20pm |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: long-term listening strategies |
Its now obvious we are looking for different things. And from your perspective, it is certainly a great Jack Straw.
Though, what is it about the late 80's that you don't like? The boys were certainly on (at least during this Jstraw), and for me, thats typically all it takes.
Early Jack Straws... I like them but from what I look for in a Jack Straw, they usually don't have it, the ending jam is much shorter and rarely if ever is climatic. I will say that I enjoy the vocals much more. They certainly possess a unique emotion that is never seen again after the hiatus. My favorite pre-hiatus version is from DP 31. I will take a listen or three to your 72 suggestion.
Thanks for the well thought out reply